POSSESSION.

'O Felix! I never durst think of anything—so like a dream!' said Clement, looking up at him.

'And you will stay here, Clem? I think you must; for you see I can hand over the rent of the glebe, and settle these things with you, taking my time about them in a way I could not do if the incumbent were not my brother and my next heir.'

'But I am not your next heir.'

'I have made you so. I thought it right to draw up a very short will, leaving everything to you, with John Harewood as executor, to save the dead lock there would be in case of my coming to some sudden end. I can perfectly trust to you to do right by the sisters and Theodore; and if Edgar, poor fellow! should come home, I know you would hand over to him what is really secular, and you would feel to be his right. But, Clement, you need have the less scruple at my doing this, that I have come to think there is little likelihood of the dear fellow being alive.'

'Indeed!'

'More than a year ago, Fulbert sent me a scrap of newspaper with an account of a man being found murdered by the bush-rangers. He had been robbed, and there was nothing about him to lead to his identification; but the diggers he had last been with called him Ned Wood. Fulbert went to the place and made all possible inquiries, but could find out nothing, but that he had been noted for singing, and was light-complexioned. Fulbert himself believes it; and I think nothing else would have led Fernan to give up his search. I thought it so entirely vague and improbable, that I let no one but Lance see the letter; indeed, I so utterly disbelieved it, that it did not dwell on me at the time; but the longer we are without hearing, the more I am driven to believe it.'

'You have not told Cherry?'

'If it were a certainty, I could not tell her half what Fulbert heard. I have never spoken to her about it. I will not take away her hope on such grounds.'

'I think you are right. I do not think anything of this story myself.'

'Nor I, at times when I think of "the child of so many prayers,"' said Felix. 'But with such a dreadful possibility, never to be cleared up, you see it would never do to leave things unsettled; so I just did this for the present.'

'Yes, it can be altered at need,' said Clement, with a long breath.

'This house,' said Felix, returning to business, 'is clearly our own; and you will go on with us of course for the present, if we can live here. It has certainly been a priory, but I do not therefore feel bound to restore that; I have read and thought much about those religious houses, and I think that there is no call to give them up as things now stand.'

'If?'

'I must talk it over with some of the financial heads. Of course I wish it for the girls, and my own duty seems to lie here; but if it will not do, I must let the place till the entanglements clear themselves.'

'Let the place? What! and go on with the business?' cried Clement, in consternation.

'I must keep on the business any way.'

'Felix! Impossible! In your position—'

'I cannot have the position if I cannot have the business. Look at it: here is Bernard to be educated, and Lance to go to the University, and four girls without any provision worth naming, besides Theodore; and how is all to be done out of less than a thousand pounds a year, with this house and grounds to be kept up, and where people are used to see five thousand spent?'

'Could you not sell the business?'

'Of course I could; but judging by what I have gathered during this year, the capital I should receive would not bring me in anything in proportion to what I make now; and I cannot afford to lose so much.'

'I don't see that you are a bit better off than you were before!'

'Rather worse, as far as money goes.—But this place! You don't feel the charm of it half enough. What will it not be to Cherry, and little Stella? I do think Cherry will get along here; though Wilmet will say we ought not to try. But I shall pay off all the servants on Monday, and we'll start on a new tack.'

'Yes; I believe they have preyed awfully on the old Squire. There's not one I should wish to keep, in-door or out-door.'

'Then we would begin on a smaller scale, and harden ourselves against traditions. I would get a real good assistant for Lamb, go backwards and forwards, and keep on the Pursuivant myself as before.'

'The Pursuivant is all very well. It is a valuable influence: but can't you keep that, and drop the retail affair?'

'I can't give up three hundred a year for the honour of the thing.'

'But if I live with you, could you not keep the rent of the Glebe farm as my board?'

'You certainly have been sumptuously maintained here, but hardly at the cost of three hundred and seventy pounds! No; I think it would be only fair that you should give a hundred towards the housekeeping, as Mr. Audley used to do, and something more for your horse; but to take any more would only be robbing the Church under another form.'

'I don't like it! It will do you harm in the neighbourhood. You will never take your proper place;' then, as Felix half smiled, 'you wonder at these arguments from me? Yes, but I know the neighbourhood better than you do, and I do not like to see your influence and usefulness crippled.'

'That may be; but the choice lies between being looked down on for being in trade and continuing in this wrong to the Church.'

'Surely we could live at small expense here! We have all been used to frugality.'

'Yes, and I have seen that stinting has not a happy effect. In such a house as this, we cannot live as we have done at home. We can do without display, but plain hospitality we must have, and debt would be worse than trade. Ah, Clem! the old home has made you the exclusive aristocrat again! Recollect, such a restitution must involve sacrifice of some sort. We must have the Underwood "rood" some way or other. You are ready enough to let it be in money and luxury, but can't you let it be in—what shall I call it—consideration? That is, if it does make any difference, or if we find it out.'

'You'll find it out fast enough from the Miss Hepburns,' muttered Clement.

Felix laughed 'Poor Clem! Hepburns first and last! I'm sorry to disgrace you!'

But during that laugh Clement had bethought himself. 'I beg your pardon, Felix; you are a lesson to me. I did not know that it was the world that was arguing in me. To go on working in trade in order to make restitution to the Church is heroism I did not grasp at first.'

'Perhaps,' said Felix more lightly, 'it is all reluctance to give up being somebody at Bexley for the sake of being nobody in Ewshire. Don't look so unhappy, old fellow; University men and beneficed clergy, like you, think much of what I was inured to long ago. Come, put out your lamp, and come up to bed; I am sure you can't finish that sermon to-night.'

'If I did,' said Clement, shutting it up, 'it would be to say I was not worth ever to preach again!'

Perhaps Felix, who had entirely disbelieved the report of Edgar's fate till his mind had in a manner become accustomed to the idea, had underrated the amount of shock that it would give Clement, who had never been half so much attached to poor Edgar as himself; nor perhaps might it have done so, but for the unnerved overstrained condition to which the year's solitude and responsibility, the months of nursing, and the days of severe fatigue, had brought him.

Felix was wakened from his first sleep by the strangled scream of nightmare in the next room, and hastening in, broke the spell, and found that poor Clement had been dreaming out what he had told him, and had deemed himself bound, gagged, struggling to come to Edgar's aid, and ask his pardon for having done him some horrible injury, the load of which did not at first pass with awakening.

'No,' he said, when he had entirely resumed his waking powers, 'it is too true! Things never were as they ought to have been between us! Who knows what difference it might have made!'

'Of course,' said Felix, thinking that to talk it all out would conduce to Clement's quieter rest. 'We can all look back to much that we would have had otherwise; but I trace the original mischief to those days when Mr. Ryder, young and eager, talked out all his crudities to the cleverest boy in his school, just as he had done to his Oxford friends. He feels it himself, I think. He gave unintentionally a sort of resource against whatever was distasteful, and made all the scepticism that the poor dear fellow was exposed to abroad not seem a mere foreign aberration. Somehow he was afraid of what religion might do to him, and so took refuge not so much in doubt, as in knowing it was doubted. The only thing that I ever knew touch him, was something Lance said to him about refusing to go and live with him in London.'

'Yes; his brightness did good, where my assumptions only added to the general contempt.'

'Still, the more I think, the more I do believe that whether we ever know it or not, so sweet and loving a nature must come right at last.'

And there in the dark those two brothers knelt down together and in deep undertones uttered a few clauses of intense prayer. Then Clement said in a broken voice, 'Felix,dokeep your present room, and let us say this together every night.'

And the elder brother's only answer was such a fatherly kiss as he gave the younger ones. They remembered that night long after!

On the Sunday Clement was not only exhausted and unwell, but could not help allowing it, for he fainted after his first service, and was forced to allow himself to lie by whenever he was not actually needed, letting Felix spare him whatever was possible. Thus it was that the new Squire astonished the natives by taking the Vicar's Sunday class in the stable that served for the school. By-the-by, instead of receiving such a lecture as used to be the penalty of intrusting his own Bexley boys to Clement, he was now dejectedly forewarned that the Vale Lestonites did not know half as much, and had the more reason to think it true because such an extraordinary proceeding on a Squire's part filled them with blank speechless amazement.

The congregation were equally full of wonder, approaching to incredulity, when their new Mr. Underwood stood forth surpliced, and read the Lessons. He had done the like often for Mr. Flowerdew; but he would not have thus amazed the villagers on this first Sunday if he had not been really uneasy as to their Vicar's powers of getting through the services. And it really was a memorable thing, to Clement at least, to hear his full clear beautiful voice setting forth the delights of the Land of Promise, the goodly houses and fields, and the warnings that he was verily taking to himself against the heart being lifted up, and forgetting, or turning to serve the gods the former nations had served—the gods may be of family pride, and pleasure, and ease, and comfort. To Clement it seemed as though he read the whole magnificent chapter of Deuteronomy like a manifesto of his own future course, declaring all against which he meant to beware. It was just as, when he had to seal up a bundle of papers that evening, he took up a big old white cornelian seal with the family shield, and said, squeezing it down into a deep well-prepared bed of red sealing-wax, 'There, I never did that before; I couldn't be liable for armorial bearings!' And as Bernard exclaimed, 'Yes, now you are a gentleman out and out!' he answered gravely, 'Not forgetting the motto, Bear. Remember what we take up.'

'There's no sense in those old sing-song saws,' boldly averred Bernard.

'Perhaps you'll know better some day.'

Felix went himself to St Matthew's with Clement, and had a private conference with Mr. Fulmort, the result of which was, that the senior curate, very glad of a breath of May loveliness, went down for three weeks to Vale Leston, while the Vicar thereof refreshed his spirit at St Matthew's, and that when he went back again he was to take with him the Reverend Frederick Somers, to stay till the family move should bring him other companions.

The only sister within reasonable distance was Robina; and Felix could not deny himself a call on her, especially as there were no further considerations about incommoding the family with her relations. He was shown into a big drawing-room, not at the moment inhabited, but with the air of being used by easy-going happy people; and almost immediately in flew the neat trim black-silken personage with the sunny round face he had come in search of.

'Felix! dear Felix! how nice and good to come in all your glory! Lady de la Poer was in the school-room, and she told me to ask you to stay to luncheon. Do, pray! I want you to see her and Grace, and my children.'

'Very well. If I do, can you come out with me afterwards? I want your help.'

'Oh yes! I am sure I shall be able. I'll ask at luncheon, if Lady de la Poer does not offer.'

'Have you spoken to her?'

'Told her? Of course. We had quite a festival in the schoolroom, and all drank your health in cowslip wine. We had had a whole lot of cowslips sent up from the Towers; and their papa came in, and wanted to know if Mr. Underwood were not worthy of a more generous beverage. Oh, I wish he were at home; I want you to see him!' ('And him to see you,' she had on the tip of her tongue, but she thought he would not like it.)

'And when are you coming home?'

'When you all go to take possession. I would not lose that for anything. I am to have my holiday then.'

'Holiday! You are coming for good.'

'Don't you think,' she said, looking up in his face, 'that after all this education on purpose for a teacher, it would be a shame to throw it all up and come to live on you?'

'That was just one of the things I value this inheritance for, Robin. There's no fear but that you would find plenty to do.'

'You have three to do it,' she said; 'and the more Angela has on her hands the better she will get on. I have been thinking it over ever since you wrote, Felix, and I cannot see that your having an estate makes it right in me to live dependent when I can maintain myself. It would not if I were your brother.'

'You are not going in for women's rights, Bob?' he said, smiling.

'Not out-and-out. But listen. What you have for us is just the run of the house, isn't it?'

'Well, yes,' he hesitated. 'It will take some time and prudence to make a provision for you, you horribly wise bird!'

'Then would it not be foolish to come and eat up your provision at home when I can do something towards making one myself; and I am really very happy?' and there was colour enough in her cheek slightly to startle her brother.

'Oh, if you are too happy here to come away—'

'Don't say that! she cried. 'I like it, for they are all kind and bright; and I never had such a friend as Lady Grace—and I feel as if I were doing a duty; but—oh no!—'

'Don't be so horribly discomfited, my dear. Only when young ladies are so happy away from home, and want to make a provision—My dear little sister, I beg your pardon—'

'Stay, Felix; I must tell you now, that you may not fancy anything so dreadful as that it is any one here.'

'Then there's an "it is," after all!'

'No! oh, I don't know! I tried to speak to Wilmet, and she would not let me; but when we were both ridiculous children, a little foolish nonsense passed between him and me.'

'Whom?'

'Willie!'

'Will Harewood? I thought that was all the Bailey nonsense.'

'I can't tell,' said Robina, leaning against him and looking down. 'Do all I can, I can't forget the sort of—of promise; and I've never been sure whether he meant it, but—but I think he did. O Fee! is it bad of me?'

'My sweet Bob,' he said, and kissed her, 'I am glad you have told me. I never thought of such an affair being on your little mind. I must say I wish it had not happened.'

'No, don't say that,' said Robina. 'It does not worry me;' and she laughed at the very sound of the words. 'Why, can't you see how happy I am? and Imeanto be. I know how good and nice he is; and if he doesn't remember, or can't do it, there's no harm done. (This was in a tone brave because it was incredulous.) But if ever it did come to anything, I should like to have something to help on with.'

'Very practical and business-like, my bird! And I am afraid it is a sign it goes deep!' he said musingly.

'Deep!' she said, looking up to him, 'of course it does! It would be very odd if it did not! But that will only make me glad of whatever is good for Will; and I think the waiting is all right. I do want to have done something for him! The only question is whether it will be bad for you at Vale Leston to have a governess sister.'

'There's worse than that, Robin,' said Felix, gravely, 'for the Squire himself remains a bookseller!'

'You don't mean that!'

He briefly explained.

'That quite settles it,' she said. 'I could not go home and live in idleness while you were working on.'

'I believe you are right, Robin; but I am disappointed. I did reckon on my sisters living like ladies!'

'Isn't three enough for you,' laughed Robin, 'to set up in a row and wait upon, as Stella does on her dolls?'

'Precisely so. I don't think I could have let you turn Effective Female on my hands, if you hadn't a pretty little feminine aim of your own.'

'For shame, Felix! Don't ever think about that again! Only tell me when to ask for my holiday.'

'There are a few repairs that must be done at once; besides I've made a clean sweep of the servants, and turned in old Tripp's daughter to do for Clement. I don't think we can possibly be ready for a month or six weeks.'

By this time the gong was sounding; and Lady de la Poer came in with a kind and friendly greeting. Felix soon found himself in the midst of a large family party of all ages, full of bright mirth, among whom Robina spoke and moved with home-like ease, and he himself took his place as naturally as it was given to him. Lady de la Poer knew a little of Ewshire, and talked to him about it in the pleasantest manner, giving the sense of congratulation without obtruding it; and she, without waiting to be requested—proposed Miss Underwood's going out with him, proclaiming that she would herself take the children into Kensington Gardens.

Then, while Robina was gone to prepare, she said, 'Your sister told me she does not wish to leave us. I said I could not consider the answer as final till she had seen you. Perhaps I ought not till she has seen your new home.'

'Thank you,' said Felix. 'I confess it seemed to me startlingly prudent and independent; but when I came to think it over, I could hardly say that the child is wrong.'

'We were very glad, as you may believe, to find that she was happy enough to be willing to stay on. Indeed, we both feel the benefit not only to the little ones, but of the companionship to the elder girls. Grace is especially fond of her, and I hope it will be a lasting friendship.'

Felix coloured as one very much pleased, and made some acknowledgment.

'There's a sturdy fearless good sense, and yet liveliness, about her,' continued the lady, 'which has already been of great use to Grace, who is naturally all ups and downs. However, if she changes her mind among the attractions of home, we promise not to feel ill-used.'

'What is Mamma saying?' exclaimed Lady Grace in person, entering the room with Robina as her mother was speaking. 'Is she pretending that we shall not feel ill-used if Miss Underwood deserts us? No such thing! I shall never forgive her—never! If you try to persuade her, mind, it is at peril of being haunted by the ghost of a forlorn maiden, pined to death for a faithless friend!'

'You don't half like to trust her with Mr. Underwood,' said her mother, laughing.

'I told you how good he was, Gracie,' interposed Robina.

'He is pretending to consent, and he means to undermine me! It will be just like Beauty and the Beast. Your sisters will do their eyes with onions, to work on your feelings; and then you'll stay on, and find the poor Beast—that's me—at the last gasp!'

'That will be when she goes home,' said Felix, laughing. 'I promise to bring her safe back now, Lady Grace; but surely you have enough sisters of your own to spare me mine!'

'Now listen, Mr. Underwood. It is true, as a matter of history and genealogy, that I've got five sisters; but Number Two—that's Mary—is married, and no good to anybody; and Number One—that's Fanny—is always looking after her when she is not looking after Mamma. Then Adelaide, whom nature designed for my own proper sister, is altogether devoted to Kate Caergwent, and cares for nobody else; and as to the little ones—why, they are only nine and ten, and good for nothing but an excuse for having Miss Underwood in the house! Now is not it true that you have three sisters already at your beck and call?'

'Two, I allow; but the third is hardly at any one's beck.'

'What, that most entertaining person, Angela? I don't think we have had such fun in the school-room since Kate's maddest days.'

'My dear, I think you have a remnant of them,' said Lady de la Poer. 'Let Miss Underwood go; I am sure her brother has no time to spare.'

'I hope,' said Felix, when they were in the street, 'that Angel has not been exposing herself there.'

'No, no, not much,' said Robina, hesitating. 'The first time or two she was asked to tea in the school-room she kept me sitting on thorns, and liked it—the wicked child; but after all, there is something about their manners that keeps her in check; they are so merry, and yet so refined. I think nothing improves her so much as an evening with them—except, indeed, when there's any external element.'

'External element?'

'Anything that—that excites her,' hastily said Robina. 'But is not Lady Grace delightful?'

'She seems passionately fond of you—or was it a young lady's strong language?'

'Oh, she means it, dear Gracie! She is lonely, you see. Lady Adelaide is rather a wise one, and she and Lady Caergwent read and study deep, and have plans together, and leave poor Grace out; and they all tease her for being so excitable.'

'Well, I thought she was almost crying while she talked her nonsense.'

'Just so I think her the sweetest of them all, because she feels so easily; but her sisters do snub her a little. And my Lady herself—is not she exactly one's imagination of a real great lady?'

'Crême de la Crême?'

'Yes, perfect dignity and simplicity, and as tender and careful a mother all the time as a cottage woman. I never felt any one so mother-like, even to me.'

'I can quite believe that. Yes, if youareto work, you could hardly do so more comfortably.'

It was a concession, and Robina had to put up with it; for as they turned into Piccadilly he changed the subject by demanding, 'Now, Robin, what shall it be? Seal-skins?'

'Seal-skins in the height of summer?'

'I thought all ladies pined for seal-skins. We have half a column of advertisements of them at a time.'

'You don't want to extend the business to them?'

'No, but to give one to each of my sisters.'

'They are a monstrous price, you know. You should have heard Lord de la Poer grumble when Addie and Grace had theirs!'

'Fifty pound will do the five, I suppose?'

'I thought there were heavy expenses, and not much ready money.'

'There's enough for that, and I mean it. I shall not know that I have come into my fortune till I have taken home something to show for it.'

'I wonder what Wilmet would say.'

'Wilmet is not my master, and a chit like you had best not try her line. It won't do, with your face and figure.'

Robina could only laugh, and feel that she was still Felix's child, and if he chose to be extravagant she could not stop him.

'Which shall it be?' he continued; 'seal-skins, or silk gowns, or anything of jewellery?'

'Jewellery would last longest, and none of us have got any,' said Robin; 'but I believe you like the seals best.'

'I want to stroke Cherry in one. And wouldn't Wilmet look grand? She hasn't got one, has she?'

'No. I was out with her and John last winter, when she dragged him past the shop.'

'I thought you were aping her! Well, I've broken loose, and she will have no choice now.'

'You don't mean to include Alda?'

'Poor Alda! Seal-skins have ceased to be an object to her; but I have had a very warm letter from her.'

So Robina was only allowed the privilege of assisting in the selection of the smooth brown coats and muffs. Felix insisted on despatching Mrs. John Harewood's to her at once; and he wanted to send Angela's, but yielded, on Robin's representation of the impossibility of her putting it away in any security from the moth. His exultation in his purchases was very amusing, as he stroked them like so many cats, as if he were taking seisin of his inheritance. And when, some hours later, he sprang out of the train, and was met by the station-master with, 'Mr. Underwood! allow me to offer my most sincere congratulations,' and everybody ran for his luggage as never before, he still clung close to his precious parcel, like a child with a new toy, even to his own door, which was suddenly opened at his bell, Sibby crying aloud, 'No, no, Martha, not a sowl shall open the door, barring meself, to me own boy that's come to his own again, an' got the better of all the nagurs that kep' him out. Blessings on you, Masther Felix, me jewel, an' long life to you to reign over it!' And she really had her arms round his neck, kissing him.

'Well done, Sibby, and thank you! Your heart warms to the old place, does it?' and he held out a hand to the less demonstrative Martha, who stood curtseying, and observing, 'I wish you joy, Sir.'

By that time Stella had flown upon him, Theodore was clinging to his leg, Lance half way downstairs, and Cherry hanging over the balusters.

'You villain!' were Lance's first words; 'why didn't you come home by daylight? All the establishment waited till the six o'clock train was in to give you three times three!'

'And now you are come,' added Cherry, 'stand there, right in the middle! I want to see how a Squire looks!'

He obeyed by planting his feet like a colossus, tucking his umbrella under his arm like a whip, putting on his hat over his brow, and altogether assuming the conventional jolly Squire attitude, which was greeted by shrieks of laughter and applause.

'Now let me see how a Squire's sister looks,' he continued, opening his parcel, and thrusting Stella into the first coat that came to hand, which being Angela's, came down to her heels.

Cherry shouted, 'Like the brown bear!' and Scamp began to bark, and was forcibly withheld by Lance from demolishing the little brown muff that rolled out; while Felix turned on Cherry with the jacket meant for Stella; and she, in convulsions of merriment, could do nothing but shriek, 'Cyrus! Cyrus! Cyrus!'

'Well, then, take the great coat, puss,' said Felix. 'Here, Stella, let me pull you out of that! That's more like it!'

'My dear Felix,' continued Cherry, in great affected gravity, 'are these the official garments wherein we are to be installed? Nearly as severe as royal ermine.'

'Don't scold, Whiteheart. I had enough of that from the wise Robin before she would help me choose them. I had set my heart on them.'

'Dear old Giant!' cried Cherry, craning up to kiss him; 'he couldn't believe he had a landed estate till he had seen it on our backs! But,' she added, fearing to be disappointing, 'I never knew before what it was to be sleek and substantial. If ever I did covet a thing, it was the coat of a seal.'

'But how is Mr. Froggatt, Lance?'

'As well as can be expected,' was Lance's reply. 'He congratulates with tears in his eyes, says you deserve it, but bemoans poor Pur, till I am minded to tell him that I'll stick by him and the concern; for really I don't know what else I'm good for, and honest Lamb couldn't write a leader to save his life.'

'I'll walk over to-morrow, and set him at rest,' said Felix. 'I could not drop Pur if I would.'

'I'm so glad,' said Cherry. 'I felt quite sad over the proofs, like casting off an old friend.'

'Or kicking adrift the plank that has brought one to land. I knew Cherry would have broken her heart to part with Pur.'

'Besides, it is a real power and influence,' added Cherry; 'and it is so improved. We had up a whole file of it for years back. Willie Harewood had lost some of his earlier March Hare poems, and thought they were there; so he and I hunted over reams of ancient Pur, and couldn't find them after all. I believe you had declined them; and they would have been lost to the world if Lance hadn't written to Robina, and she had copies of them all, laid up in lavender.'

'And they are the most splendid of all!' said Lance.

'Only too good for the Pursuivant,' laughed Felix.

'Well,' said Cherry, 'Will and I held up our hands to find how stupid Pur used to be four or five years ago, when you were in bondage to Mr. Froggatt's fine words and his fears.'

'Yes, and had no opposition to put us on our mettle,' added Lance. 'The Tribune was the making of the Pursuivant; I'm inclined to offer it a testimonial. By-the-by, Felix, are you prepared for a testimonial yourself—or at the very least, a dinner in the Town Hall, from your fellow citizens? They're all agog about it.'

'On the principle that "as long as thou doest well unto thyself men will speak good of thee?"' asked Felix. 'No,' correcting himself, 'that's hardly fair; there's kind feeling in it, too; but perhaps they will let me off when they find it is not a farewell.'

'Not!'

'Now, Cherry and Lance, I want you to look at this statement. Clement has seen it, of course; but I don't want it to go any further, except to Jack. It is enough to say that I find the property a good deal burthened, which is only too true.'

'You don't seem to have much of a bargain!' said Lance, coming round to read over Cherry's shoulder.

'The question is whether Cherry can trample on Underwood traditions, and keep house for a thousand a year where people expect three or four times the sum to be laid out.'

'I thought you reckoned things here at five hundred.'

'Hardly so much. We shall have to get our old bugbear, the superior assistant. Besides, Lance, now's your time. You must begin to get ready for Oxford at once.'

'I?' said Lance. 'No, thank you, Felix. Clement offered me the same last year, but my head wouldn't stand grinding nohow. No, if you stick to the old plank, so will I. I was more than half wishing it before, and ready to break my heart at leaving the organ to some stick of my Lady's choosing, only I didn't know what you might think due to the manes of the Underwoods.'

'The manes of the Underwoods must make up their minds to a good deal,' said Felix; 'but is it really true that you do not think yourself fit for study?'

'No, but music I can combine with the work here,' said Lance; 'and that would save the superior assistant, and you will be free to make a gentleman of Bear.'

'Yes, that must be done,' said Felix. 'Even Stoneborough will not do now. He is such a cocky little chap, that the only chance for him is to get him to a great public school, where this promotion will seem nothing to anybody.'

'My poor little Bear! I am very glad,' said Cherry. 'And he is still young enough; yet it hardly seems fair, when all his elders had to earn their own education.'

'Such as it was!' interjected Lance.

'Yes,' said Felix; 'and when I remember the sighs my father now and then let out about Eton or Harrow, I feel bound to give the benefit to the one who can take it; but I don't like the spending two hundred a year on that boy, and then leaving you, Lance, to all the drudgery, and a solitary house.'

'That matters the less,' said Lance, 'because I am busy with the choir and with practice two evenings in the week, and should be more, if it wasn't for doing the agreeable to Cherry.'

'He'll turn into a misogynist, like Mr. Miles,' laughed Cherry.

'No, he'll be consumed by an unrequited affection for all the young ladies that come in with the loveliest eyes in the world,' said Felix.

'He'll set the March Hare poetry to music, and serenade them with it,' added Cherry.

'No, I shall cultivate the Frogs,' said Lance. 'It would be too bad to have left the poor old boy in the lurch.'

'Yes, that has weighed a good deal with me,' said Felix. 'I'm determined that they shall come and stay with us at the Priory as soon as we can get it in order, and before the winter. I'll bring them up myself. You see, Lance, whenever I take a turn here you can be at home.'

'Home! he has begun already!'

'It was home to me first, and I always feel that it is whenever I come in sight of it. Lancey, boy, when I think of leaving you here, it seems letting you sacrifice yourself too much!'

'Nonsense, Blunderbore. You can't give this back to the Church if we don't keep off your hands; and next, thatcoup d'étataddled my brains so far that I'm good for no work but this that I have drifted into.'

'Then, Cherry, you must help me make an estimate of the expenses, and see whether we can venture to live at the Priory, or whether we must let it, and go on here for seven years.'

'Oh!' They both looked very blank.

'I'd rather live on bread and cheese in the country,' said Cherry.

'So had I,' said Felix, 'if the manes of the Underwoods are appeasable. One step is a riddance of all the servants; I wonder how many you can do with. Five maids and five men I paid off, only keeping on one man, to look after Clem's horse and see to the garden.'

'By-the-bye,' said Lance, 'George Lightfoot begged me to state that his sister is at home, and always had a great wish to live with Miss Underwood.'

'Let her come and speak to me, then,' said Cherry; 'though I am afraid she must moderate her expectations. It seems to me that except for the honour of the thing, this is another version of our old friend—"poortith cauld."'

'Our best friend, maybe, Cherry,' said Felix, 'if we can only heartily believe it?'

'His bride, as truly as St. Francis's,' thought she; 'and without the credit of it.'

'And while the wings of fancy still are free,And I can view this mimic show of thee,Time has but half succeeded in his theft—Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.'Cowper.

Though Felix had gone to town both in going to Vale Leston and coming from it, a much shorter way was feasible, only necessitating a couple of hours' delay at a junction.

This was not so entirely inconvenient, on Felix's twenty-ninth birthday, which had been fixed for the general migration to the new home, since Robina was to meet the others there from a country house of Lord de la Poer's, seven or eight miles off, and Major and Mrs. Harewood, and their two sons, would be in the down-train that was to pick the party up. Not only were they to assist in the taking possession, but they had secured lodgings for three months at the Glebe Farm. 'It will be such a good thing,' had Wilmet said, 'to settle them all in, and put Cherry and her housekeeping on the right tack.'

'My dear Wilmet, I am perfectly sensible of the admirable monarchical constitution Kit and I live under; but my principles are against annexation, and if you extend it to Cherry's house, I shall carry you off at once to Buckinghamshire, or to the Hebrides!'

'I only meant to help,' said Wilmet, with a little dignity; then changing her tone as she saw a smile twitch his moustache, 'and you shall be judge what is help!'

Clement was already at Vale Leston; and Bernard, declaring that no one should catch him again at that filthy hole, Bexley, had repaired thither as soon as his holidays began. Martha, Amelia Lightfoot, and a superior housemaid of Wilmet's selection, were gone on to make ready; also a young gardener, whose face had pleased Felix when he came to advertise: and half the Underwood family were at the station, together with Willie Harewood, Sibby, and Scamp—the latter chiefly in the service of Theodore. Sibby was useful in other ways; but she was, as ever, to have the chief charge of the boy by day, be his refuge from strangers, and attend to his meals, it being one of his peculiarities that he never could or would eat at the family table. And Scamp, though Lance's property, was so much Theodore's delight, that separation would have been cruelty; and Lance had resigned him with free good nature, and not without hopes of Scamp's brother as an inmate, for Dick Graeme himself had been articled to a surveyor, and was to live and board with Lance, his mother declaring her conviction that this was the best security both for his moral, and his rather fragile physical, health. One of the 'everlasting Lightfoots,' as Angela called them, had married a nice young wife, and was to occupy the lower rooms, anddofor them.

So there were nine individuals seeking what pastime the junction afforded. The Squire—Felix's present nickname—was, to every one's amusement, seated at the table in the waiting-room, writing a leader with the rapidity and abstraction peculiar to himself. A leather couch was occupied by everybody's hand-bags, umbrellas, and parasols; a cage of doves, a basket of the more precious flower-roots, and another with a kitten, under Geraldine's protection; while she endeavoured to keep Theodore happy and not troublesome by a judicious dole of biscuits to be shared with Scamp, whom he held in a string—until, at Lance's step on the platform, the dog rushed out after him, dragging Theodore after him—Cherry limped after Theodore, Felix hurried after them all, and Lance took Theodore by the hand, and led boy and dog wherever it pleased them to go, and they could go safely, while Stella rushed to satisfy herself of the welfare of her kitten and birds.

Except for such interruptions, the public was mostly concerned to find a place whence to behold Robina's arrival. 'What will she come in!' said Stella. 'A carriage like the Centry one?'

'Rattling up in an old fly,' said Will, gruffly.

'Will is jealous of the swells that have proved so attractive!' said Angela. 'Aren't you burning with curiosity to see them?'

'Not in the least! I know quite enough of them.'

'Know them?'

'A couple of tufts at Christ Church. Not a bad oar—but a regular stuck-up fellow!'

'Which? or is the description collective?'

'Look, Angel!' cried Stella, as an open waggonette, drawn by two handsome black horses and full of a merry party of young people, came dashing up; a cockaded servant opened the door, and a youth in summer costume sprang out.

'That's him!' quoth Will.

'Lord Ernest!' responded Angela.

Then the well-known figure of their own Robin was handed out by him, and lastly one of the other damsels, whom Angel identified as Lady Grace.

'They are not coming in here!' exclaimed Bill, grimly.

Nevertheless they were; the waggonette drove off amid nods and smiles, and Robin and her two companions were the next moment in presence, and Will was forced to shake hands with Lord Ernest, while Lady Grace went through the same ceremony with Felix and Angela, indeed with every one. 'I know you all, already,' she said; 'I'm so glad to have seen you, if only to warn you not to keepher.'

'Are you going our way?' asked Cherry, feeling the bright charm of manner.

'No; we only came to see her safe into your hands. Come, Ernest!' But he was enthusiastically admiring Scamp, and inquiring how to procure the like; and it was some minutes before he shook hands with Robina, saying, 'Then you'll let Gracie know whether one is to be had for love or money?'

'I thought you were to have one of the brown setters?'

'Well, why not?'

'One can't have more than one dog of one's heart,' said Angela.

'They must compete for that honour, then. Dogs, as well as other beings, must earn their place by their qualities. Eh, Gracie?'

'You foolish boy!' was his sister's reply. 'Come along. Good-bye, my dear little Copsey. If I don't get a letter every day I shall be convinced that your sisters are putting onions in their eyes.'

'What bright creatures!' exclaimed Cherry.

'What did she call you?' said Will

'Copsey. Oh, Copse, Underwood—the children all call me so. It is my pet name.'

'Insufferable impudence!' muttered Will. 'And what were you thinking of, Lance, to talk of getting him a dog of that breed, when you know Graeme would as soon sell his children?'

'Was not he very proud of the Richborough keeper coming over after them?'

'Those weren't sold.'

'I beg your pardon. Dick told me what he got for them.'

'One may do a thing for a neighbour, that one wouldn't for a chance stranger at a station.'

'You Red Republican!' said Angela.

'It is enough to make one a republican in earnest.'

'Inearnest, indeed!' mischievously echoed Angela.

'To see a shallow young tuft expecting to get whatever he chooses to ask for, and every one else encouraging him in it—even those who should have more sense!'

'Meaning me!' said Lance, putting an arm in his and walking him off to the end of the ticket-taker's little platform; but they had no sooner turned back than he exclaimed, 'There's that fellow again!'

There indeed he was, with 'Here's your parasol, Miss Underwood. Of course you know the guilty person?'

'Mine was almost exactly like Lady Caergwent's, thank you!' said Robina, comparing the plain blue sun-shade with the one she held.

'Except that hers is minus the tassel,' said Lord Ernest. 'You plainly don't understand the principle of barter and exchange.'

'What? Always to take the least scratchy slate, and longest slate pencil!' said Angel.

'That's an essentially school illustration thatIshould not have dared to make,' said Lord Ernest.

'Nor I,' said Angela, 'but for the blissful fact that I'm no longer a schoolgirl.'

'I envy you,' he said, with something like a sigh. 'Your wings are grown!'

But there Robina uneasily said, 'You are keeping Lady Caergwent all this time without her parasol.'

'There, you see!' he returned, in a half pathetic tone of appeal, which made Angela laugh excessively. 'But, indeed, there's no fear; she and my sisters are in Long's shop, and will spend the next two hours in debating whether print in spots or stripes best conduces to the morality of their old women. That's the next stage after leaving school is it not?' turning to Angela; 'the first use to be made of your liberty!'

'To wear stars and stripes?' she asked, with a little wilful gloss.

And so with desultory nonsense they went on; Robina more than once interfering, and trying to send Lord Ernest off, but always hovering about them, in a certain ill-at-ease condition. Felix, having posted his leader, and taken his tickets, came out on the platform, and watched the group with a shade of perplexity.

There stood Angela, the bloom of seventeen brightening her pale colouring, and her play of feature and beautiful mischievous dark grey eyes making her face full of attraction. A knowing little black Tyrolese hat, with a single peacock's feather, was tipped over her forehead; her mass of flaxen hair was in huge loops, tied with crisp streamers; and her tall figure, in the same silver-grey as all the sisters had agreed on, looked dashing, where Robina's—with the adjuncts of a shady hat and a good deal of falling black lace—was quietness itself. Robina's face, still round, honest, and rosy, had grown more womanly, and had a distressed uneasy aspect, as she stood a little aloof, not quite mingling in the conversation, but yet not separating herself from it. The youth who was talking to Angela was dark haired, with rather aquiline features, but with that peculiar whiteness of complexion which is one of the characteristics of old nobility, and though not exactly handsome, with a very pleasing countenance, and an air of birth and breeding, a decided contrast to the figure who regarded them from a little distance. William Harewood had developed into a much bigger man than his brother, but he had not the advantage of John's neatness of figure and soldierly bearing. He had his mother's odd looseness of make, as if his limbs had got together by accident, and his clothes ditto. John's hair was of the pale sandy hue; but his, including long whiskers, was of the darker, more fiery tint, which Lance, at his politest, termed cinnamon. To be sure, he had a huge massive forehead, under which his yellow green-flecked eyes could twinkle and sparkle; and his wide mouth, when grinning from ear to ear, was an engine of fascinating drollery, while a few deep thoughts or words instantly gave majesty to the whole face, and extinguished all sense of its grotesqueness; but at present, as he leant against one of the posts of the platform, a heavy ill-humour had settled upon his countenance, which made his whole look and air more befitting a surly navvy than a first-class prizeman, tutor of a distinguished college, and able to get more aristocratic pupils than he wanted for his intended reading-party on the hills of the upper Ewe.

Felix had stood for some moments, looking on, wondering what it all meant, when the bell rang, the train swept up, the doors flew open, and John Harewood sprang out among them.

'A crowded train!' he said. 'There's only room for three in there, with Wilmet; Krishnu and the nurse have been keeping the places. Here, Cherry!—Here, Robin!—What, Stella! all this live-stock?'

'Oh, yes, please,please, Robina, take the doves; I can't trust them or my pussy with any one else.'

And past various self-concentrated people, intensely aggravated at exchanging the companionship of one baby for that of two doves and a kitten, the sisters were bundled, to find Wilmet watching for them, with her elder boy asleep on her knee, a great serene good-tempered fellow, with her features and clear skin, and though with true Harewood hair, a Kit to be proud of.

'But where's Angela?'

'There—running after Lance.'

'In that hat! Angel? I saw her as the train came up, and never thought of her belonging to us. How could you let her make such a figure of herself?'

'Nature is partly accountable,' said Cherry, in an odd sort of voice. 'And—Well, she brought home the hat, and it does become her. She can be very picturesque!'

'I'm no artist,' said Wilmet, remembering her husband's caution, and abstaining; then, as the train began to move, 'Ah! Willie will be left behind! No; he made a rush! How foolish! What's the matter with him? He seemed in a brown study.'

'He is out of sorts,' said Cherry. 'I believe he is very much put out with Lance for not going to Oxford.'

Robina looked up eagerly. 'He must have wished it very much!' she said, catching gladly at this explanation of his ill-humour.

'Yes,' said Cherry; 'nothing would have so relieved him from the sense that Lance blighted his prospects in his service. He came down persuaded, I believe, that he and his big head could shove Lance through all the passes, just as he could put him over a gap.'

'Everything comes so easy to him, that he has no notion how hard it is to Lance,' said Robina. 'John says Lance is right, but I am sorry—'

'So Felix wrote,' said Wilmet, 'and one can only acquiesce. Oh, and before this good little traveller wakes, tell me all about the dinner.'

'There's more that you have not heard about,' said Cherry, triumphantly.

'The inkstand!' said Stella. 'O sister! they have given him the most splendid inkstand!'

'Who? The Bexley people?'

'Yes,' said Cherry, 'a regular testimonial. They kept it a great secret; only Mr. Lamb came blushing in one day and borrowed one of the old books with the coat-of-arms in it, so that I thought something was brewing. Half the town subscribed—all Felix's young men's class, and quantities of his old scholars; and there's a little silver knight on the top, with a frosty silver pennon with the Rood upon it.'

'The Pursuivant himself?' said Robin.

'Yes, standing on a pedestal—a match-box, I believe, with such an inscription on it that Felix is ashamed of it; and we have had such a fight about its standing in the drawing-room or being suppressed in his study, that Felix said at last that we were like Joseph's brothers in prosperity, and wanted the warning, "See that ye fall not out by the way."'

But the quarrel had not been a serious one, to judge by her happy face.

'It is very nice, very nice,' said Wilmet, 'and I am not at all surprised. I thought they must do something of the kind. Was it given at the dinner?'

'Yes; it was brought in when Mr. Postlethwayte began his speech. He is Mayor this year, and he was so kind—he came and asked us whether we shouldobjectto go with Mrs. Froggatt, to sit in the gallery.Object, indeed! I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world; and we were just above our dear old fellow's head, where he could not see us, which was all the better for him.'

'Was he nervous?'

'No; he said there was a reality of kindness about it all that made him feel it as friend to friend. So the Minsterham reporter said too. Felix brought him in to tea, because we are to have his report for Pur. He said he had never seen such genuine feeling on all sides. He wanted to call it an ovation. And Felix puzzled him so by declaring that inapplicable, unless it had all been mutton.'

'And Mr. Bolton did send ever so much venison,' put in Stella; 'and a letter besides, because he could not come himself. Mr. Postlethwayte began by reading it.'

'Yes; that was all the right and proper thing,' said Cherry; 'all civility about his valuable supporter. As well might he say, for hasn't Pur fought for him through thick and thin—and suffered too! But it was Mr. Postlethwayte who had his heart in it. There, Stella, you can say it all off by heart like a little live page of Pur. Tell Wilmet what he said about example.'

'He said,' rehearsed Stella, 'that Felix had set a noble example of considering no means of independence derogatory, and only manifesting his birth in the high sense of honour which, in the name of his fellow-citizens, he confessed to have been no slight stimulus.'

'Well done! That was much for Mr. Postlethwayte to say.'

'Oh! everybody said everything!' answered Cherry. 'Mr. Bruce went on about the paper. Poor dear old Pur, he never had so much good said of him before, and every word true; but the real beauty of the thing was the Frogs.'

'I am so glad Mr. Froggatt could go.'

'He said he would not have missed if he had had one foot in the grave. I really was afraid, once or twice, Mrs. Froggatt would have embraced us then and there in the gallery, before all the people. How she did cry, dear old lady!'

'She was thinking of her own sons, poor dear!'

'Partly; but I do think half was pride and pleasure, and that sort of feeling that grows up of unanimity. I can't describe, but it is like a spirit mastering all. You will read in the report; but it does not give a notion of the kind of glow, and the ecstasy of the cheer, when Mr. Underwood of Vale Leston was given out—the looks of all the faces! Oh! I can't describe it—one seemed obliged to sob for gratitude! And then, in the lull at last came his voice, so clear and sweet and strong, and taking them all by surprise. Now, Stella, go on!'

'Felix stood up,' said Stella, with a pretty little tone of enthusiastic imitation in her low sweet voice, 'and said perhaps it was not regular to criticise the manner of such an honour as they had done him, but he must say that he had rather they had proposed him as Underwood of 14 High Street. For if his good friends thought they were disposing of him with a long farewell, he must tell them they would not be rid of him so soon. For he said that for the means of fulfilling his new duties he must look in great measure to his old sphere, and their unvarying friendliness. What a noise they did make then! and when he went on to thank them for their kindness in treating him as one of themselves, though without any claim of long standing. And then wasn't it nice when he went on about Mr. Froggatt!'

'Can't you see, Wilmet,' continued Geraldine, 'how being altogether moved and excited, all sorts of things came out that he never could have said in cold blood? About the gentleman he said it was all owing to—his accepting him when he was a raw friendless lad, giving him an opening for exertion—patience—kindness. You'll read it, but if you could only have seen and heard when he said he should always esteem the connecting of their names among the dearest honours of his life, as it had certainly been the proudest. He told us afterwards that he saw a face looking as if it sounded like humbug; so he added louder, "Yes, as much the proudest and dearest, as what one may hope is personal is better than what comes by the accident of birth." And he could not believe that any honour could bestow on him the pleasure he had felt when he first saw the names of Froggatt and Underwood together. Whatever he had done or hoped to do, he felt to be due not only to the first start, but to the long thorough training in diligent habits of business. As Mr. Bevan said afterwards, it was the most beautiful outpouring of gratitude without false shame. And Mr. Froggatt, who had not the least expected it, was quite past speaking. "Gentlemen, my feelings—" he said, and broke down, and every one cheered, and he tried again, but only got as far as "Gentlemen, my feelings—" and put his hand on Mr. Ryder's arm, and begged him to say it for him, something about "a thousandfold repaid." Mr. Ryder made a set speech of it, all very true and good, really the best of all, looking so in the Pursuivant, but nothing to "Gentlemen, my feelings—" and the great sob.'

'Dear old gentleman! is he more reconciled to the losing you all?'

'Yes, he is so much pleased to keep Lance, and that Felix does not throw it all up. Indeed, if we could have given up Bexley it would have been a great difficulty, for Felix feels that he took the duties of a son upon him.'

'It does to a certain degree qualify one's regret,' said Wilmet. 'As John says, one would not take the responsibility of saying a word of remonstrance; he is no fanciful lad, but a man well used to practical questions; but I still am sorry he should so cripple himself by acting on scruples Papa never entertained.'

'We can hardly be sure of that,' said Cherry. 'That old letter to Mr. Staples looked as if he were doubtful. When I told Sister Constance—I could not help it, though Felix had not given me leave—she seemed quite overcome, and then she pointed out how right it had all come, for in the ordinary course of things most likely this restitution would not have been possible. If he had been brought up as an eldest son, and we had all had an expensive education like other people, not only should we all have grown into acquiescence in an unavoidable sort of abuse, but there would have been none of the power of independence that enables him to do this; and there would have been settlements and all manner of things to tie it up. Remember, too, that dear Papa was always thankful that he did not have the trial of unmixed prosperity.'

Those were the last words before there was a slackening of speed; Wilmet resumed the one Kit, Stella the other, Robina wielded the doves, and gathered the parcels, a tall fair head under a big black hat nodded and smiled welcome, and the little station seemed to flash with greeting, as in another moment the halt was made, Clement wrenched open the door, swung out Stella, holding fast by the basket, and set her down with a kiss, next putting forth a long tender pair of arms to lift Cherry down, and then receiving his nephew and holding him while Wilmet and Robina extracted the other impedimenta, and the other two-thirds of the party hurried up, amid touching of hats and services of porters, Bernard and Angela flying upon one another, and luggage pouring out of the van.

'I hope there's room,' said Clement, surveying the numbers. 'I brought everything on wheels that I could get beasts for.'

And making Kit over to his father's hand, he conveyed Cherry to a corner of the big barouche with post-horses, and then hurried back to pack in Wilmet and her boy. He would have put in Robina and Major Harewood, but they both cried out that this was the place for Squire himself. Clement and John dragged him from some selection of boxes in a recusant but passive state, and deposited him opposite to Geraldine, as she merrily called him 'to enjoy the novel sensation of riding in one's own coach.'

'Theodore!' he remonstrated; but Wilmet's eyes grew uneasy, and Clement said, 'Better let Lance and me take him. You'll have a noisy welcome, and he had better not have the first brunt. Here, Tedo, jump up by Lance; see my big horse! Ha! I see Angel and Bear have climbed to the box. Now then, Robin, in with you! Can you make room for Stella?'

So having packed the barouche, Clement sent it off with a dash, taking John and Will Harewood as well as his two brothers in that dog-cart that fitted him so oddly, while Sibby, Krishnu, the nurse and baby, and the luggage, were disposed of in a sort of break which would hold everything, and came soberly behind with a farm-horse.

It had been well done of the brothers to relieve Felix from the charge of keeping the peace between Theodore and Kit, and leave him free to enjoy the arrival with his sisters, and to be happy in having Wilmet with him, the sharer in all his earlier exertions, and the best able to enter into his recollections, though at first she failed to recognise the old landmarks he pointed out, and Cherry sat dreamily smiling, owning that she recollected nothing in particular, but all was lovely and delicious, and not like a strange place, but as if she belonged to it.

Then came the summit of the hill, the church tower, and the river, and the rich valley stretched before them; and as there was a halt to put on the drag, up came on the breeze a clash and peal. 'The bells! the bells!' cried Stella; and Wilmet held up the finger to her boy, 'The bells, Kit, the bells for Uncle Felix! Listen!'

'Don't you ever forget,' cried Cherry, bending to kiss the wondering child; and grasping Felix's hand in irrepressible agitation, 'Oh! how often I have wondered whether we should live to see this day!'

'Thank Heaven that you share it, Sweetheart,' fervently whispered Felix; while Bernard and Angela turned round, and screamed to them to look.

And there was a big arch all across the road, all greenery, big white and orange lilies, and 'Welcome' and 'F.C.U.'s, and a flag on the church tower, and a tremendous onset of drums and trumpets, obstreperously hailing the conquering hero, who had to take off his hat and bow to the mounted array of some dozen tenants and their sons, all the cavalry of the estate turned out to meet him. 'Master Kistopher' was hardened enough to military bands not to mind this at all; but it was well that Theodore was a little behind, for the lungs of all Vale Leston Abbas, and more too, united in the cheer as the arch was reached. 'Oh! I hope they won't take out the horses!' cried Cherry, more than half frightened, while Bernard and Angel danced up and down with ecstatic cries of 'Jolly! jolly! Here's the whole place turned out! They'll draw us up to the house! Hurrah! hurrah!' bowing so graciously, that Cherry, in a counter paroxysm of diversion, called to them that they would be taken for the man and maid if they appropriated all the enthusiasm.

Happily no one was venturesome enough to meddle with the horses, but the whole population attended the carriage up to the house, making so much discordant uproar, that the reception was a very questionable pleasure to the nervous; Cherry was between laughter and sobs, and Wilmet had to spend much pains in persuading her boy that it was all excellent fun.

At last, upon the stone steps stood Felix, with Cherry on his arm, Theodore in his hand, nine altogether out of his twelve brothers and sisters round him, on this the threshold of the home of his forefathers. There he stood, bare-headed, moist-eyed, thanks to Heaven swelling his heart, thanks to man fluttering on his lip, as he heard the fresh shout of welcome, and the old men's 'There he is! God bless him!'

'Well may they say so!' whispered John Harewood to his wife. 'Here, at twenty-nine, he stands a stainless knight, with a stainless shield, as though he had not had to fight his way, and bear up all these around him!'

Felix meantime, withstanding Theodore's terrified tugs at his hand, put him into Sibby's care, to be taken as far as possible from the human greeting, and to enjoy that of the bells; Clement, with a prevision of the welcome, had provided a supply of cider, wherewith he and the other gentlemen proceeded to administer draughts to the health of the new master, who was allowed to do nothing but stand on the step to make a tableau, as Bill said, with his sisters, and return by look and gesture the tokens of welcome and the cheer, which Clement, gathering his choir, contrived to render considerably less inharmonious.

Then Felix, feeling that some words were due, and trained a little by town-council exigencies, spoke forth. 'Thanks, thanks with all our hearts, my good friends and neighbours. We did not expect so hearty a welcome, and I am sure we shall never forget it. As far as an earnest wish and purpose to do my best will carry me, I will try to deserve it; but you must bear with me if I often unavoidably disappoint you, and do not come up to the old golden age of this house. Any way, let us do our best, one and all, to live here to the glory of God, and in friendliness to one another. Then it will go hard if we are not very happy together.'

The bright smile and joyous hope in his face awoke a shout of 'Yes, yes!' and another cheer, followed by a farmer's voice proposing the health of the ladies, with the homely addition from another quarter, 'Bless their sweet faces!' and an observation which the Major delighted to overhear—'That there tall one, with the child by her side, was a right-down comely one, just such as our ladies up here did used to was.'

Health to 'Mr. Eddard' followed, surprising the new comers who had not learnt to accept the Vicar's parish name. It drained his provision of liquor, and gave him the opportunity of saying, 'Thank you sincerely, dear friends. We are old friends, you know, and I need say no more, only that now we have seen the good time coming, you had better wish the travellers good-night, and let my sisters rest. You will all be better acquainted soon.'

'Well managed, Mr. Edward,' said Felix, smiling, as Clement, for the first time able to speak to him after dismissing his flock, ran up the steps looking heated and radiant.

'There's another thing I've done, Felix,' he said, rather breathlessly. 'I've got a supper for the ringers in the long room. Martha is much displeased about it, but it is the only chance of breaking the neck of the drinking at the Rood without making you unpopular.'

'All right, Clem, thank you. Well! you look better than when I saw you last!'

'I'm quite jolly, thank you;' and indeed, the fagged air of depression had changed to hope and sunshine; he had grown quite sunburnt, and as Cherry followed up the compliment, had turned into a vigorous country parson instead of a white town-bred one. He was acting as a sort of host. 'This way, Wilmet. You must settle about the rooms, Cherry. It was all guess-work between Martha and me. There's some tea in the drawing-room by this time.'

He led them quickly through a large hall, paved with black and white lozenges, into a sort of conservatory passage, glazed on one side, and containing old orange-trees in tubs, and more recent fuchsias and geraniums, a great curtain of lilac Bougainvillia drooping at one end—making the girls shriek with ecstasy, and reproach Felix with never having told them of it.

'I am afraid I had forgotten it,' said he. 'I never went into this part of the house on my last two visits.'

'It was Jane's territory (Mrs. Fulbert),' said Clement, 'and I am afraid she has dismantled the room a good deal. The one hundred pounds you allowed her to choose as her own furniture came chiefly out of that, and the valuable things poor Fulbert had in his smoking-room. It was an odd choice, but I thought you would not mind that, and the valuation man looked sharp after her. I kept out of the way of the squabble.'

'I know where I am now,' said Wilmet. 'There's the garden-door at the end. And here is the drawing-room door. Ah! it does look empty.'

'Oh, never mind tables and chairs. The window!' cried Angela, flying forward to the eastern one, a deep bay, cushioned round, and looking out on the sloping lawn, gay with flower-beds, in pleasant evening shadow, the river sparkling beyond, and with a sidelong view of the bridge on the one hand and the church on the other. Two other windows looked to the south, also into the garden.

'At least she has left the piano,' said Lance.

'It was valued at eighty pounds, which would have made too large a hole,' said Clement. 'Also she has left a chair for you to sit on, Cherry. Are you tired?'

'I haven't time! I can't grasp it! Home! So exquisite, and all ours. Oh! the pictures! That lady, with the bent head over the rose, and the arch pensive eyes! She can't choose but be a Sir Joshua.'

'Right, Cherry,' said Lance, mounting a chair and turning to the back; '"Lady Geraldine Underwood, 1770. J. Reynolds."'

'The Irishwoman that gave you eyes and mischief. Your best possessions,' said Will.

He looked at Angela. Did he forget that neither Irish eyes nor mischief were Robina's portion?

At that moment Stella, who had gone up to the hearth, exclaimed, 'Edgar!' then checked herself, at the sound of the seldom uttered name; but Felix and Wilmet had both sprung to look.

'I remember,' said the latter.

'Is it my father?' whispered Stella.

It was one of a pair of the largest size of miniatures in Ross's most exquisite style of finish, thirty years back, just before the marriage of Edward and Mary Underwood. He, still a layman, was in a shooting-coat, with a dog by his side, and with the look of life and light, youth and sunshine, that had never left him—indeed, none but the little ones who had never really seen him could have hesitated for a moment; but it was different with the fellow-portrait. If Felix and Wilmet had not remembered 'Mamma's picture,' they would hardly have connected the bright soft smiling rose-tinted girl with the toil-worn faded image on their memories. Wilmet's tears gathered; and Felix murmured to Cherry, 'One feels that the life was killed out of her! She looks as if one would have died to save her a breath of care! Oh! to have brought her back!'

And with a wistful sigh he looked at Stella, the most like the portrait, though none of the sisters really reproduced it; indeed, the peculiar caressing and relying expression could hardly have been brought out, except by a petted shielded life, free from all care or hardness. Wilmet was on a more majestic and commanding scale; something of the darling child expression was in Geraldine, but intellect and illness had changed both the mould and colouring of the features. Robina was of the round-faced, round-eyed type, only refined; Angela like no one but Clement; and even Stella was not only too small, but too thoughtful, to recall that flower-like careless loveliness of Mary Underwood's maiden bloom.

'It was hard on you not to have had these,' said John.

'I suppose,' said Felix, 'that they were done for my uncle, and that my father thought them too valuable to take away.'

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